Like the previous two outings, the third installment in Microsoft’s wildly popular, third-person shooter series
Gears of War plays like a Hollywood summer blockbuster. A game this big requires a soundtrack to match, and
Transformers composer
Steve Jablonsky is more than up to the task. The main theme, which boasts an immediately engaging, heroic melody that brings to mind elements of
Howard Shore's score for the Lord of the Rings trilogy, is woven throughout, and it offers up more than a few poignant moments of stoic calm amidst all of the carnage. Big, bold, and suitably epic (choirs, orchestra, percussion),
Jablonsky can roll out successful action cues in his sleep, and there are a great many to digest throughout the soundtrack’s 31 tracks, but it’s when he dials back the artillery that
Gears of War yields its greatest gifts. ~ James Christopher Monger